New tongue for cancer sufferer

An Austrian man who had a tongue transplant is relearning to speak and swallow a month after his operation.

The unidentified patient, 42, who had a malignant tumour on his tongue and part of his jaw, underwent a 14-hour operation on July 19 in which doctors amputated his tongue and attached the new one. He is believed to be the first tongue-transplant recipient.

On Thursday he was released from Vienna General Hospital. He has shown no signs of rejecting the tongue, which is healing well, hospital spokeswoman Karin Fehringer said.

"Although the tongue still can't be moved, the patient can already swallow some of his own saliva," she said.

He was undergoing speech therapy and could make himself understood with the help of a tube inserted into his trachea, the spokeswoman said.

The new tongue was removed from a brain-dead donor by a team of doctors in an adjacent operating room, and handed over to the transplant team.

The donor - chosen because his blood type and tongue size matched that of the recipient - was then taken off life support.

Surgeons who performed the transplant said there was no evidence in medical literature that such an operation had been done on humans before. They were convinced the procedure was the first.

The doctors said they hoped the patient, a former smoker who could no longer open his mouth because of the tumour, would be able to eat and speak, but said it was unlikely he would ever be able to taste again.

He suffered from a mild case of pneumonia 10 days after his operation, but had faced no other complications, doctors said.